Book 37 of 26 -- 1776 by David McCullough

So there I was.... trying to figure out what book to read next when I said... oh ... what the heck. I graduated college with honors and with a Phi Beta Kappa award with a degree in History. I should like 1776 by David McCullough... shouldn't I?

I really should start getting back into things that had to do with my m ajor. I should read more historical stuff... Heck.. I read THE HISTORIAN and it was fantastically historically based. So... I picked up some real history and not just some pseudo-history about Dracula and the history of his myth.



1776 is actually a lot easier read than I ever expected and so much that I looked at the last few pages to see how long the book was -- 400 pages. SOOOOO... imagine my surprise when I reached page 300 and it was over. That's it... the end... 300 pages of text and photos and 100 pages of footnotes and bibliography.

There is a reason why it was a Pulitzer Prize winning book. It was great. It was easy to read and created a simplistic enough narrative about the year of 1776 and how the war of Revolution changed the landscape of America.

Here's what I really liked about it. Many history books and texts have been written from a one sided perspective. McCullough reviewed and went through the Brit's papers to provide a pretty even sided version of the story from both perspectives.

It was also pretty interesting to me as a good deal of the stories took place in New Jersey... with old and current names. If you didn't know the historical figure's name, you might recognize the fact that they had a town or famous landmark named after them... such as Cadawalder Park in Trenton.

I rambled a lot while writing this... a whole friggin' bunch.

I liked it and if you have any inkling of interest in the book but have been delaying picking it up......... I totally recommend reading it.

Do it... NOW.